


Begin Again

by CatKing_Catkin



Category: Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)
Genre: Angst, Class Differences, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, Sickfic, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 06:17:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3800017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatKing_Catkin/pseuds/CatKing_Catkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It was not the first winter Eric had survived alone, and it would not be the last. Or at least, that was what he told himself upon first returning to his cottage on the very outskirts of the city. He could have stayed. He knew he could have stayed, knew that she probably would have seen to it that he was never cold, never hungry, never alone and lacking for the rest of his days. After all, that was just the sort of person she was - the kind to save what wasn't worth saving."</p><p>After the war has been ended and the rightful Queen returned to her throne, the Huntsman tries to remember how to live rather than just survive. It's harder than he'd thought it would be. But when the last of the winter cold lays him low, he's surprised to receive a bit of help from someone he never thought to see again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Begin Again

**Author's Note:**

> As I learned from the credits of the movie and the novelization, the Huntsman's name is actually Eric. So that's what I'm going with for this fic. It makes internal narration a lot easier, all things considered.

No matter how fair and lovely the Queen, winters would always be cold. Even the first spring after Ravenna's defeat did not come immediately. Though flowers began to blossom beneath ice and frost, though birds began to twitter and sing in the cold, clear mornings, the winter remained cold and would clearly stay that way at least a few weeks more.

It was not the first winter Eric had survived alone, and it would not be the last. Or at least, that was what he told himself upon first returning to his cottage on the very outskirts of the city. He could have stayed. He knew he could have stayed, knew that she probably would have seen to it that he was never cold, never hungry, never _alone_ and _lacking_ for the rest of his days. After all, that was just the sort of person she was - the kind to save what wasn't worth saving.

That thought was tinged with less despair and dull, leaden grief than it had been for all these past few years, however. Yet again he was returning from war, but even through the fresh horrors all too recent in his memory, his shoulders felt less bowed. He could believe that he'd fought for something besides a noble's pride and greed, and that made all the difference.

He would not sully that by taking advantage of her good nature any longer than he already had. Eric knew he would, inevitably. That was just the sort of person he was, and she deserved so much better. She deserved the faithful childhood friend who would help support her in this strange, free new world, but of course she wouldn’t see it that way. She always had a way of coaxing out the best in people, if there was anything even remotely like that to coax out.

Maybe one day, there could be something like that in him again.

It wasn't much of a hope to base his future on, but it was more than he'd had in longer than he could remember. It was a resolution he made while sitting outside his usual tavern, a mug of mead in his hand and the celebrations still raging in the streets. Eric watched the revelry and laughter, watched the land come alive again, and quietly raised a toast. It would prove to be his last drink.

After that, he went home, and tried to remember the difference between surviving and living. The world in general did not make it easy for him. He’d let his house, _their_ house, fall into deep disrepair, due to a combination of lack of energy and lack of funds. Sara would have been ashamed, of course. What food there had been had gone bad a long while ago, given how long he’d been away. Hunting would be a brutally hard endeavor in this weather, but Eric made himself get up and do so, every dawn. When, by merciful fate, he brought home more than he could eat on his own that day, it was something he could trade for coin.

His neighbors were surprised to see him acting like a man alive again. At first, they joked about it, laughed at him even as they took his food and gave him too-little coin. Even so, as the days grew colder and shorter, they saw the value of laughing less, and the value of meat more.

He’d fought monsters and survived a war. A bit of hunting in areas he knew well should have been nothing at all, after that. Yet even the most brutal battles only lasted hours, and then the danger was over one way or another. Winter was days and _weeks_ of bitter chill, enduring and varying only in how deeply it dug into your bones. Eric sometimes thought longingly of the burn that alcohol brought on its way down, but managed to remain resolute. The warmth of a fire was harder to chase, but the it was realer.

Still, it was a hard and bitter life to have suddenly leapt back into after so long idle and broken. Eric supposed that he shouldn’t have been surprised to wake up one day with the beginnings of sickness dragging at his limbs and itching in his throat. He made himself carry on anyway – winter didn’t care – and fought against the inevitable end result with all his slowly recovering, inevitably dwindling strength. He would not falter. He would not fall again.

Under other circumstances, it might have been admirable that he made it a week before sickness took him entirely. As it was, when Eric awoke late one evening and found that that was as much as he could manage, he cursed himself fiercely and tried anyway. Exhaustion and sickness soon claimed their due once more.

He would learn later that three days passed like that, though at the time Eric was certain that he would die alone in the cabin he’d only just begun to rebuild. Three days passed of him growing weaker and weaker, because of course there was no one to help him. The others on the outskirts had only just begun to think of him as a person again, rather than as a joke.

With an effort of will as great as it had taken to come back in the first place, Eric could manage to haul himself out of bed long enough to take some water from the barrel only once during those three days. The meat he’d set to drying by the fire might as well have been sawdust and glue in his mouth, but he forced himself to chew it anyway, and after the first time he was sick he forced himself to chew it slowly. 

It was enough to keep him alive, but for a while, all that meant was that he felt the fever all the more keenly. All that meant was that he didn't slip quite deeply enough into senselessness to escape the nightmares. Nightmares of ravens cawing and clawing at the door, of blood bright as jewels in the snow, of closed eyes and steps too slow, of screams and swords and glass and loss and...

"Huntsman."

For a long moment, he was back in the thick of the army, surrounded by the howl of soldiers and the rhythmic thudding and shaking of hoofbeats. Then, slowly, Eric came to realize that no, he was actually sprawled out on his stomach on his bed, all but drenched in sweat, and someone was shaking him. Someone was speaking, but they sounded so far away...

"Huntsman. Eric. _Please._ "

Something was held to his lips. It was tilted slightly and he felt a bit of water splashed against his face, and _God_ , he was so thirsty, so hot, please, please...

When Eric opened his mouth, he indeed felt water tipped into it, clear and cold. The stranger hushed and soothed him as he tried to fumble for the cup, as he tried to all but inhale the water. "Slowly, slowly now." He felt slender fingers stroking gently through his sweat-stained, matted hair, and then, for a long moment, he felt nothing. For a long moment, Eric wondered blearily if this had all just been another dream, a more insidious sort of nightmare to torment him on waking.

Yet just as he was about to weep with frustration, the touch returned, and the voice. "Shh, it's all right." The cup was held to his lips once more, and a damp cloth was pressed against his face and used to gently dab away at the heat.

So long. It had been _so long_ since anyone had really been there, had cared for him in his miserable, wretched existence. After he’d lost Sara, the first had been…

…but of course, she wouldn’t be here. Not now. Not anymore. Good and kind and lovely as she was, what was one man in place of a kingdom only just begun on the long road to recovery? No, she would not be here, not for him.

And yet, to Eric’s desperate, fevered mind, that left only one other possibility, one that was only slightly less impossible in that moment.

“Sara? Sara, is that you?” _Please, God, please…_

And then, to his disbelieving delight, after a pause that felt like an eternity and a heartbeat all in one breath, the angel spoke again. Eric was suddenly, piercingly certain down to his bones of the truth of her words.

“Yes, my darling. I’m here, it’s all right now.”

And of course it was, of _course_. How could he ever have forgotten her beautiful voice, no matter how many years had passed? Now it wasn’t merely sickness clouding Eric’s eyes, but tears, tears of love and loss. With clumsy, fumbling fingers, he reached out, seeking, aching to hold her after so long apart.

He couldn't, but Sara took pity on him, and gathered up his hand in one of hers', twining their fingers together. Eric couldn't hold back a broken sob, in that moment. Pathetic, he was so pathetic, but she still loved him anyway. "I missed you." Three words that were horribly inadequate to express years of grief, sharp and raw enough to have nearly killed him on their own. But they were somehow the only words he could think to say, in that moment.

One heartbeat, two, and then Sara leaned in close and brushed her lips against his. "And I missed you, dearest. But there's nothing to worry about now. You're sick, let me make you better."

"You already have." She always had.

Still, at her urging, Eric let himself relax back into the mattress and tangled blankets. She dabbed at his face with a damp cloth and let him sip at a little more water. After a little while, he felt some chicken broth tipped into his mouth instead. She must have found the bones he’d been saving.

Bit by bit, like fragments of glass being pieced back together, he felt a little more whole in body as well as mind. At least enough that, when she tried to help him change into clean clothes, he was able to help as something other than dead weight.

At one point, Eric heard other voices, unfamiliar voices. Male voices. Soldiers? He bared his teeth and tried to rise, ready to order them out of his house, _their_ house. But he barely made it into a sitting position, and couldn’t have stayed there long even without Sara urging him back down.

She didn’t sound afraid, so it must be all right. Eric closed his eyes once more, and slept a little more peacefully with the sound of her humming softly in his ears.

*  *  *

He awoke to the sound of crickets chirping and the wind soughing through the bare branches. He awoke, truly awoke, for the first time in a long while.

So for a long, long moment, Eric had no idea what had really happened and what had just been a fever dream. He still felt miserable and wretched, but more in body and less in mind. Every inch of him ached with weariness and fever, but his mind no longer felt like it was bundled in a shroud.

This left him wondering just what had happened _before_. His first thought was that it had all been a dream, it must have been. Sara had died so long ago. Yet his clothes had been changed from what he’d been wearing when he’s first passed out, and there was no chance that he’d been any fit state to do that himself.

Someone had been there. Someone must have been.

Were they still here?

Curiosity and wariness drove Eric to muster what strength he’d regained for the sake of pushing himself upright. His arms trembled with even that much effort, his fingers curled tightly in the tangled bedsheets. But he made it, he looked around, and there curled up on the hearth he _saw_.

She looked so much as she had when he’d last seen her. The biggest difference, at first, was that she was obviously keeping up with some of the good habits running for her life had taught her. Namely, always wear trousers when travelling. The blouse and pants she wore were deceptively simple, but Eric supposed they had probably cost more than his house to tailor. And they were getting filthy from his floor.

But she slept on anyway, heedless – her pale skin seeming to glow faintly by the light of the dying embers, her dark hair fanned out around her face. He realized then that part of the reason she was curled up so small was likely due to the fact that the embers _were_ dying, and there had been only so much Eric could do even when well to keep the winter winds from creeping through the cracks.

His heart ached at the sight of her. Getting up out of bed for the first time in so many days was a treacherous effort – he swayed and stumbled more than once, and eventually had to brace himself against the wall while the world decided to stop spinning.

Yet eventually, step by laborious step, Eric made his way over to the fireplace. At certain points, only raw determination _not_ to fall over on top of the Queen kept him upright, but it was still a relief to be able to kneel down between her and the fire, even for the sake of taking up the poker and prodding at the coals.

Of course, the coals hissed and spat angrily at his urging, and of course that awakened her. Her brow furrowed for a moment, and she murmured sleepily, before opening her dark eyes and pushing herself up on her elbows, the better to stare blearily about herself.

When her gaze found him, her eyes actually widened in alarm, and she reached out a hand to take hold of his sleeve. "You shouldn't be up," she whispered, her voice still thick with sleep.

Eric took her hand and gently disentangled it from his clothes. Yet he couldn't seem to bring himself to take the step of letting go, after that, and instead squeezed her fingers gently. "And you shouldn't be here." When he finally did release her hand, it was only for the sake of sitting down beside her by the fire, the better to continue stoking it. "Why _are_ you here? Don't you have a kingdom to tend to now, Your Grace?"

He knew that probably wasn't remotely the right title. He didn't care, and she didn't correct him. Maybe she still didn't, either.

Snow White pushed herself up into a sitting position beside him, darting an anxious glance up at his face before apparently deciding that the fire was a safer option. "You’re not that far from the castle.”

“Have you been having me watched?”

Her cheeks darkened, with either embarrassment or shame, but in the end she shook her head and he believed her. “I had to come out this far. My soldiers are overseeing the mapping of the Dark Forest…” She shot him a glare as Eric snorted with derision. “…and I wanted to speak with them myself. When I heard you lived nearby, I wanted to see you, and…”

“…and here I am,” Eric finished simply, bitterly. “You still shouldn’t be here.”

“Why not? You’re my friend. I wanted to see you well.”

“No, I’m _not_. I was your employee. Now I’m your subject. And you have plenty of doctors you could have sent in your place.” _Without risking your health_ , he almost added, but didn’t. _You’re too important_ , he should have added, but didn’t.

“They’ve been here to see you,” Snow White replied with maddening calmness. “You don’t remember.”

He probably didn’t, that much was undeniable.

“And if I survived the Dark Forest,” she added, with a faint smile. “I can survive a winter chill.”

“You shouldn’t have to. You shouldn’t concern yourself with just one man anymore.”

“What sort of Queen would I be if I did anything less?”

The answer hung between them, unspoken, as though to speak the name aloud would summon her back. _Ravenna_. With that in mind, Eric found that any rebuttals he might otherwise have offered died on his tongue.

The little cottage was proving damnably slow to heat again. Eric told himself that that was the only reason Snow White moved a little nearer to him, pressing closer against him. Indeed, he could still feel minute little tremors running throughout her body.

The logical solution to that seemed to him to be to get to his feet and retrieve some of the blankets from his bed. They weren’t exactly clean, but they were warm, and she’d proven herself to be made of more stubborn stuff than whatever illness still had him. As Eric made to rise, however, it was as if Snow White had read his mind. She got to her feet instead, moving over towards the bed, grabbing up a couple of blankets, and returning to the hearth with them. From there, they settled them over their shoulders, and Eric even moved to drape an arm around her shoulder and hold her a little closer. She was warm, and alive, and he hoped a day would never go by where he wasn’t grateful for that.

A few more peaceful moments of silence passed, before Snow White spoke again.

“It’s good to see you. Even if it had to be like this. I’ve…missed you.”

“So have I, Snow. So have I.”

She lifted her gaze to his, a light of something like hope in her eyes. “You left. Just after the coronation. I thought…”

Eric drew in a sharp breath in comprehension and horror, and shook his head without hesitation. She’d thought what? That he’d been angry with her, or disgusted? That he’d felt _nothing_ to see her standing there, proud and triumphant and safe? No, foolish girl. “I thought you had no more need of me,” he murmured. It sounded ridiculous, now that he said it. Almost as though to make up for it, he shifted his grip around her into something more properly an embrace. She settled into it with a soft sigh, her grip tightening on him in turn. “Plenty of soldiers now to keep you safer than I ever could.”

“I always have need of friends.”

_Friends_. It seemed such a horribly simple word, inadequate for all they’d gone through. But the only other word Eric could think of that even came close was one that he didn’t dare to say out loud. Certainly not here in this house, too laden with ghosts.

“You’ll find better friends than me,” he promised instead.

She smiled, slow and warm as the rising sun. She leaned forward, so that her breath ghosted against his neck as she murmured: “Never.”

When she pressed her lips to his, Eric’s first thought after the shock wore off was to wonder if he was dreaming again. Then, as her hands moved to clench tightly in the front of his shirt, and he moved his arms to wrap around her, he resolved to worry about it in the morning.

Even if he was, he’d certainly had less pleasant fever dreams.


End file.
